In January, after personally biking on snow and ice chunk-filled sidewalks, Bike Anchorage reached out to commuters to see what the conditions were like across town. The feedback was that many multi-use paths across the city were getting inundated with snow/ice cleared from the roads and dumped on the pathways and sidewalks of the city.

To see how we can address this maintenance issue, we reached out to the Municipality. We had hoped to sit down with both DOT and Muni maintenance departments to understand the issues involved. While we didn’t get that meeting, we did hear back from Lori Schanche, the Municipality's Non-Motorized Transportation Coordinator.

Lori told us that she had sat down with MOA Streets, MOA Parks and DOT Roads to see how we can improve maintenance and clearing of our multi-use paths and sidewalks.

You may or may not know that clearing is split between the Municipality and DOT. They each have separate crews clearing roads and pathways. DOT’s roads are the big arterials (Seward, Tudor, Raspberry, Minnesota, etc.).

The problem comes when a pathway is cleared and then afterwards, road crews come and further grade the road and spill snow and ice debris onto the once cleared pathway. Lori noted that

It can appear counter-productive as on occasions the work of one crew messes up the work of another crew. For example,sidewalks that have been cleared get big

Not it, in the sense that “it’s” over. But it, as in, one year of bicycle commuting. Last spring, I set a goal to stick it out and try my wheels at winter biking. It’s been a hell of an experience – cold, dark commutes were the highs and lows – but it was pretty amazing and I’m grateful that I was able to do it without much struggle.

Bike Anchorage kicked-off its 6th annual Winter Bike Fest in fashion with a great party. Now it’s time to experience Winter Bike Fest around town by bike. Join us and other bike enthusiasts on a tour of galleries and shops for February's First Friday art event.

We are excited for Bike Anchorage's 6th Annual Winter Bike Fest. And this year we have some great events - inside and out - lined up. Winter Bike Fest is about celebrating everything bike and getting together with others to create a strong bicycle community. We hope to see you out at one or more of the Winter Bike Fest events.

Winter Bike Fest poster designed by Kristen Gilbert (Thanks Kristen!)

The Details:

Bike Anchorage Winter Bike Fest Kickoff Party

Event details: We are inviting everyone in the bicycle community to come celebrate Anchorage as a bike-city. We want to highlight all the organizations, groups and businesses that are making Anchorage a better city to bike. There will be an opportunity to learn more about what is going on in 2015, do some light painting with bike lights, and food and drink.

Suggested Donation $5.

A big thanks to the Moose's Tooth for sponsoring this event!

Bike First Friday

When: Friday, February 6th. Meet at 5:45. Ride starts at 6:00pm

Where: Meet at Snow City Café. From there we will bike around downtown and Midtown to enjoy some First Friday art. We’ll end at 8pm at Anchorage Community Works.

Event details: This is a free event. Just bring a bike and a smile. Make sure to have bike lights (front and back), a bike lock and preferrably wear clothes that are highly visible.

Winter Bike Fest Happy Hour

When: Tuesday, February 10th from 5:00pm to 7:00pm

Where: Spenard Roadhouse

Details: Bike over to the Spenard Roadhouse and show your bike helmet to your server to get FREE tots! It's the Roadhouse's way of saying thankyou for biking.

Join us for a fun night on January 29th from 6 to 9pm to celebrate all things bike. We are kicking off Winter Bike Fest with a party that hopes to bring out everyone who loves to ride a bike -- commuters, mountain bikers, fat bikers, snow bikers, any and all bicyclists are invited. There will be food and drinks, games, prizes and light painting so come on down to Anchorage Community Works and help us kick off Winter Bike Fest in fashion.

Bike Anchorage and AIA-Alaska’s fifth annual Summer Bike, Walk & Bus Commuter Challenge concluded at the end of August with huge success. This fun, free and friendly challenge between businesses, agencies, organizations, any and all places of employment, marked huge success this year by doubling the number of teams and participants competing. Over 120 teams competed with just shy of 1000 participants. A total of 138,990 miles were biked and walked. Add in the bus riders with 59,841 miles and the total comes to just under 200,000 miles commuted in Anchorage without using one’s car. And that’s just the people who signed up and logged their trips each day they commuted by bike, bus or foot.

The Challenge

The annual contest, sponsored by Bike Anchorage and the American Institute of Architects, is a good-natured competition to

Bicycle Commuters of Anchorage is now Bike Anchorage. After years working to make Anchorage more bicycle-friendly, we recognized that BCA was not representative of our work. To be more inclusive and better reflect our mission of making Anchorage bicycle-friendly for everyone and anyone, we have changed our name to Bike Anchorage. Our mission remains the same and our work, as defined through our 2014-2018 strategic plan, remains focused.

With our new website, you can find out what fun events we have planned, can sign-up to volunteer, and stay up-to-date on exciting news stories about biking in Anchorage--all in one place!

We look forward to getting more people involved in making Anchorage a more bicycle-friendly city, so get involved and stay tuned!

Ronde van Anchorage

100K of love for the Bicycle Commuters of Anchorage

Anchorage loves bicycling, and it makes perfect sense to support the local bike advocacy group that works to make Anchorage more bicycle friendly for every kind of rider. That’s the reason for The Ronde van Anchorage 100K. It’s on the wild side of urban adventures. It’s challenging, beautiful, and all proceeds support the BCA! We’re giving back to insure the BCA continues on its mission.

As an all-volunteer organization we rely on you, our supporters and volunteers. You are the reason we are successful, from getting out and demanding more funds for Bike Plan implementation to making Anchorage’s Bike to Work Day a success. BCA wanted to express its thanks to everyone who helped out to make Bike to Work Day awesome.